Review: Ark Linux 1.0 Alpha 10.1

Adrift in a sea of difficult Linux distros? Sick of treading water with Windows? Climb aboard Ark Linux and discover smooth sailing!

When you think of Linux, certain names spring to mind: Red Hat, SuSE--even Libranet. But you almost never hear someone say "Hey, did you download the latest version of Ark Linux?" Well, its too bad, because Ark Linux might someday be a viable contender for the Linux desktop crown and it surely deserves some recognition as such at this point.
(Note: Though quite well done, Ark is still labeled as "alpha" and should be treated appropriately. If you install it on a machine that contains important data, be sure to back up your data first.)
Included Software

Before we dig into the meat of the review, heres just a sample of what youll find bundled in as part of Ark Linuxs default desktop:

OpenOffice.org 1.1

Kopete Instant Messenger

KDE 3.1.4

KMail

KNode

Konqueror

Xine

Quanta Plus

KSnapshot

The Gimp

Want even more than what comes bundled by default on the install CD? No problem-- just download the separate CD full of even more software.
For the rest of the review, click here.

Jim manages the PC Magazine and ExtremeTech forums, and is responsible for building community in the forums on both sites. He started managing PC Mag's forum on ZiffNet on CompuServe many years ago. He then transferred the staff and expertise to the Web. He left ZDNet when it moved to San Francisco and came back to Ziff after the split from ZDNet, right before ExtremeTech launched. You can get more background at his personal site: www.jimlynch.com/profile.htm.

His favorite movies include Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Three Musketeers (1973 version), Dune (Sci Fi Channel version), and gobs of others. He can't live without his iPAQ Pocket PC,he uses it at the gym and everywhere else,and his DVD collection features more than 200 films. His favorite game is Tribes (PC), which is more than three years old but he still plays it all the time.

Jim likes interacting with the folks in the forum and the content. 'I Love both of 'em,' says Lynch. 'It's what makes the job fun and interesting.'